Because One World is Never Enough

Month: June 2018

Because of work that I’ve been doing on “Nuuk Adventures” as well as other commitments, I haven’t been making videos or writing blog posts as often as I used to. I do love what languages give me, but the biggest dream in my life right now is to get my first video game published and popular and while there have been difficulties with that, I will need to make sacrifices in other areas of my life. And that’s okay.

Anyhow, for June 2018 I imposed a challenge on myself to not write two consecutive posts in the same language for a whole month.

Here are some things that I realized as a result of the experience:

I most often defaulted to languages that I felt “needed work”.

Hungarian and Fijian were my primary focuses in June and will continue to be so in July (when I revive my Fiji Hindi as well). Devoting a serious amount of time to three languages every day will be difficult, but I’m not one to be afraid.

I don’t have a single Facebook friend who speaks Fijian (even though I do know some who can read Fijian words out loud and pronounce them correctly). That said, I often wrote posts in Fijian with English translations in the comments.

I have a substantial amount of Hungarian friends and Hungarian-speaking friends from other places (the U.S. and Israel, mostly). Between that and machine translations for Hungarian (despite the fact that they translated the word “Fijian” as “fiancé” in a recent post of mine), I didn’t need to translate them into English.

I struggle with Hungarian sentence structure (although I’m getting used to the cases better every day).

In line with that thought…

It enabled me to “refresh” languages that I couldn’t engage with online as readily (such as Irish and Gilbertese)

Learning Hungarian for me has proven to be MUCH, MUCH easier than learning any language from Oceania. Hungarian is all over the internet in comparison to languages like Fijian or Gilbertese.

As a result, my motivation for Fijian somewhat slumped because sometimes I felt that I couldn’t find interesting content as much (although maybe I’m…not looking hard enough! Yo, I’m always open for suggestions…)

Gilbertese was also an issue because “comprehensive input” (describing something that Olly Richards is currently using with his Italian project) has been…non-existent…except for my YouTube series on Gilbertese which is helpful but it’s clear that I’m a non-native and that my pronunciation in the earlier entries needed improvement. (the ‘ in the b’a combination is pronounced as “bwa”, and in some Gilbertese orthographies is written as such).

Actively translating things into rarer languages was helpful.

That said, sometimes I worried that I was “doing it wrong” and sometimes I realized that my vocabulary retention wasn’t too high.

But the key is to do something that helps, even a little bit, and to keep doing it.

Machine Translation or not, most people would see something in Finnish and scroll past it if they don’t have a solid ability to read it.

I saved my longer, eloquent posts for being written in English and then had quaint observations and jokes in other languages. This doesn’t reflect my skills, but rather my audience.

My Facebook Friend Requests Quadrupled as a Result

My posts are open and so when people saw what I was doing they were immediately intrigued. With growing skepticism of polyglot culture for a number of reasons, the fact that I was writing posts in many languages, some of which haven’t been touched by machine translation at all, was a clear marker that I was genuine (which I know that I am).

A lot of people in the online Facebook groups added me as a result. Yes, I have following enabled, but I’m always glad to help others in any way I can. Granted, I get hundreds of messages a day and it has been hard for me to keep up. But I do try.

It seems likely that this may become a permanent habit in July and Beyond

I’m not going to lie, I genuinely enjoyed this, it made me project a more interesting version of myself and it cemented my vocabulary in many languages significantly.

I also got two corrections over the course of the month (one from a Hungarian speaker and another about word choice from a Swedish speaker). I’m grateful for your input and I don’t take it personally.

JULY 2018 Challenge:

July 2018’s challenge (I’m probably going to make the weekly challenges a habit, inspired by the legendary Ari in Beijing):

– I must translate ALL Facebook posts I write into either Fijian or Fiji Hindi. This is true regardless of source language. (Posts in Hungarian, Hebrew, Danish, English, etc. are affected)

– I can write the translation in a comment instead (for example, if I want to write a very powerfully worded political piece, I may opt for doing this).

– I may use any orthography for Fiji Hindi.

– I may use as many English loan words in Fiji Hindi as necessary for it to feel genuine (e.g. the way an Indo-Fijian would speak). The same is true for English loan words in Fijian.

– For the sake of balancing translating into the two languages, I have to alternate between Fijian and Fiji Hindi with each post. If I translate into both, it serves as a wild card and I can choose which of the two to do for the next post.

– Instagram is unaffected, but if I share any Instagram photos or videos to Facebook, I must translate the caption into one of the two languages in a comment (or both).

– The challenge will be suspended in the event of me going abroad. (Foreshadowing?)

Granted, I’ve been in writing retirement for a while (because I’m focusing more on my video game right now which is my life’s first priority at the moment), but in honor of Greenland’s National Day, I’ll be keeping with tradition and letting you know exactly where to turn if you want to begin your journey into the fascinating language of Greenlander Country (Kalaallit Nunaat – which literally means “to the Greenlanders their Land).

Some of you may know that I am the proud uploader of the first Greenlandic course in the history of Memrise.com. My courses are still there and encompass two very important elements:

Basic phrases that are useful in tourist situations (which is ALWAYS a helpful starting point) and

Suffixes (complete with examples). Suffixes are ESSENTIAL in Greenlandic because twenty-letter words are the norm. There are suffixes for verbs and suffixes for nouns and also suffixes that transform one part of speech into another. Like some other languages outside the Indo-European sphere, the boundaries between parts of speech are significantly blurry in Greenlandic.

In some extreme examples, you end up with words like “Nalunaarasuartaatilioqateeraliorfinnialikkersaatiginialikkersaatilillaranatagoorunarsuarooq” (Once again, they tried to build a giant radio station, but apparently it was only on the drawing board). Dissect this word in a comment and you’ll win a prize!

I get messages on a weekly basis on how to learn Greenlandic, and the Memrise courses in both English and Danish are a good start. (NOTE: they are accessible from the Desktop version despite the fact that the app version only offers the choices of the official courses. Memrise, you really need to fix that…)

One book that I’ve found extremely useful is the German-Language “Grönländisch – Wort für Wort” which explains the grammar very clearly and also provides a lot of useful phrases for all tourist situations. That said, I somehow feel as though the book itself isn’t going to fully equip you to speed-read the Greenlandic Language Edition of “Sermitsiaq” (a local newspaper).

Yes, it is Danish-Greenlandic and if you don’t know Danish you’ll probably get repetitive strain injury via copy-pasting everything into Google Translate. The dictionary includes both example words and phrases that fully illustrate how you use something.

Let’s show you an example from the book:

elske vb. (-de, -t)

~r ham, ~r hende asavaa (fx de ~r hinanden asaqatigiipput)

~r ham højt, ~r hende højt asaaraa

han ~r at rejse angalajumatuvoq

jeg ~r kaffe (ɔ: synes det smager herligt) kaffi mamaraara

I’ll translate this for you:

To love

Loves him / her – asavaa (e.g. they love each other asaqatigiipput)

Loves him / her dearly – asaaraa

He loves to travel – angalajumatuvoq

I love coffee (i.e. thinks that it tastes great) kaffi mamaraara

One thing to understand about Greenlandic is the fact that its verb forms are difficult. There are intransitive forms (ones that you use when there is no direct object) and transitive forms (ones that you use when there is one). Granted, languages like Fijian and Hungarian also have similar systems as well, but in Greenlandic each pair of subject -> object determiners is different.

At 4:19 in this video you can see the full conjugation of intransitive verbs:

nerivunga – I eat

nerivutit – you (sing.) eat

qitippunga – I dance

qitipputit – you (sing.) dance

Etc.

Later on in the video comes the “atuar-“ root which means “to read” (a word that didn’t exist in Greenlandic prior to foreign contact).

There is one issue with a lot of learner-ese in Greenlandic, the fact that making a jump to native level material can be VERY DIFFICULT (especially if it is very poetic material like Nanook’s song lyrics).

One thing that would be helpful is to listen to the BEGINNING of words and recognize the roots of each word first of all. In Greenlandic and other polysynthetic languages, all words have a “base” on which other words are made.

Illoqarfimmut -> to the city.

Illu is the base. And it means “house”. Qar -> to have. fik -> place where there are. mut -> towards.

“Towards the place where yon be houses.”

The language works with mathematical precision precisely for this reason. Greenlandic isn’t necessarily difficult on paper it is just very hard to get used to. But that in of itself has earned it the coveted title of “hardest language I ever attempted”. (Palauan is second place).

Glosbe.com is also very useful by virtue of the fact that its cross translations will ease you into reading Greenlandic even if the words seem very intimidating.

What’s more, you can also begin writing your own sentences, however simple, to gain an active understanding of the language.

Lastly there is a lot of bilingual Danish / Greenlandic material present on websites such as KNR are Sermitsiaq.

You’re probably wondering if it is possible to learn Greenlandic without Danish at all. Perhaps, but do keep in mind that a small amount of loan words as well as all numbers higher than 12 are taken straight from Danish, not also to mention that it would also be useful for your Greenland journey as well (as things stand).

Lastly I’m here to help in any way I can. I may not know the language too well, and it isn’t my best one . When I was there I usually managed basic tourist functions with ease but nothing very deep. That said I can provide help or even provide more resources if necessary.

If I have my way, Greenland-o-mania may be taking over the world before we know it!

June 6th is Swedish Flag Day, and by now you probably know exactly what I’m going to do.

Swedish pronunciation is intimidating. The syllable stress games can be daunting, the shifting vowels as well, not also to mention the various tomfoolery with letters like k and g when placed before certain vowels. This throws off a lot of absolute beginners and yes, does cause a lot of them to give up.

The grammar may be very familiar and easy to adapt to if you’re a native English speaker, but sounding genuinely Swedish is a great challenge (even though, contrary to what I’ve read in some travel guidebooks, it IS very much possible for a foreigner).

One thing I definitely recommend to my students and friends is to imitate the accent in an almost over-the-top way at first and then learn to “tone it down” accordingly. This helped me with more recent languages as well, such as Hungarian and Fijian.

Anyhow, topic at hand!

A lot of people may know that videos of people playing games with commentary have not only gotten very popular in the past decade but also that PewDiePie, the YouTuber with the most subscribers (as of the time of writing) is himself Swedish. For better or for worse, he has been one of the forces behind the immense Swedish culture boom that is only gaining momentum by the year.

That said, there are many other Let’s Players that actively use Swedish in their videos—such videos can be harnessed with shocking effectiveness in order to ensure that you learn to speak casually, naturally and with very believable pronunciation.

My talk at the 2017 Polyglot Conference did deal with this in detail. But that’s for another time.

Anyhow, predictable listicle, right now!

Matinbum

His style is not only very accessible for more advanced beginners, but also includes many theatrical improvisations that make it very much worth watching. Matinbum’s improvisational singing is certainly worth mentioning as well as his ability to draw forth cultural references from Swedish and Anglophone culture to maximum humorous effect.

The game in the video above (“I Wanna Run the Marathon”) is an extremely difficult “rage game” that draws together themes from many well-known game franchises as well as every single unfair trick you can think of. This video series is a winning combination (as are many of Matinbum’s other ones).

Figgehn

His style really does lend himself emphatically to not only a very memorable voice with a distinctly Swedish texture to it but also, from a learner’s perspective, serves to enhance all of the advantages of “context learning” that this genre represents. The narration being on point is a huge advantage to you, the learner, in picking up new words based on context alone.

Mustachtic

Probably the most beginner-friendly of the channels on here, this channel has upwards of a thousand videos spanning a VERY wide variety of family-friendly games. If you’re in the beginner plateau and want to advance in a very fun way, I definitely recommend almost all of the videos that Mustachtic has to offer.

The Kilian Experience

You’re probably wondering what an English-language channel is doing on here in the first place. Surprisingly Kilian’s voice does have many features that make a Swedish-accented voice stand out, which is very helpful for not only learners like you but also people who may think that the Swedish Chef is somehow a realistic portrayal of what Swedish actually sounds like.

If YOU are a Swedish YouTuber and also have a channel (esp. a Swedish-Language one), let us know about it in the comments accordingly! Chances are I may have not discovered you yet. 🙂

Anyhow, one thing you should also know is that I’m on a break for a while (with the likely exception of 21 June’s Greenlandic post that a lot of you have been asking for) to work on my dream project, “Kaverini: Nuuk Adventures” a.k.a. “Greenland: The Game”.

I’ll still be able to read and approve comments accordingly. Until we meet again!